25 lakh ultra poor families to get rice at Tk 22

With Open Market Sales (OMS) hardly stabilising rice prices, the government in yet another move yesterday decided to introduce fair price cards for 25 lakh ultra poor families across the country.

Under the programme, families with no permanent income or land and not enlisted for any social safety net programmes would receive 20 kilogrammes of rice per month at Tk 22 a kg for three months, said Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque.

He said the families maintained by women would have priority in obtaining the cards. Each family would be issued one card and the applicant member of the family must have a national identity card, he added.

The programme would start from February 21 after preparing a list of the beneficiaries at all the divisional and district headquarters, the minister told newsmen at his ministry's conference room.

The programme would cover 10,000 families in all the wards under Dhaka City Corporation and 25 adjacent unions, 5,000 families of 25 wards under each of the rest divisional cities and 10,000 families of each district headquarters.

The Department of Food in consultation with the local members of parliament and ward commissioners will prepare the list for the programme.

The decision was made at a meeting of Food Planning and Monitoring Unit under the food ministry. Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury and the high officials of the ministries concerned were present in the meeting presided over by the food minister.

"We have monitored the market for 15 days but did not notice results as expected. Therefore, we want to increase the supply in market," Abdur Razzaque said.

The government on January 20 started OMS in the capital and areas in Narsingdi, Narayanganj and Gazipur where mostly the labourers live. Initially, it stabilised rice prices, but gradually prices, especially of fine rice, started going up.

According to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, price of coarse rice was Tk 26 to Tk 28 a kg even a month ago. But, prices of medium quality rice, which was Tk 30 to Tk 33 a kg a month ago, went up at Tk 33 to Tk 37 yesterday.

Prices of fine rice also went up at Tk 35 to Tk 44, which was Tk 32 to Tk 44 per kg a month ago.

Retailers said the millers, mainly of Kushtia, Chapainawabganj and Naogaon, were stocking rice because of rising prices in the international market.

There might be various reasons for the price increase, the food minister said, adding that rice usually sells in India at lower prices than that of Bangladesh, but this year price of rice there is higher. Besides, rice prices in Thailand and Myanmar are also as high as India, he noted.

"We have 8.67 lakh tonnes of rice in stock and need only 1.5 lakh tonnes for the programme. We do not need to import rice," Abdur Razzaque said.

Asked what difference the new programme will bring when similar quality of rice is sold at Tk 22 a kg under the OMS, Razzaque said, “Production cost of rice is high. So, you cannot lower food prices as you wish. But, we want to increase the supply to make the market stable.”